


Winsome As You May Be

by HoneyCorvid



Series: Tell Me (Tell Me What You See) [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Theirs is not a healthy relationship but there's nothing especially awful happening in this oneshot, They're Basically Just Roommates That Loathe Each Other, basically just exposition, implied/referenced canon-typical old lady murder, monster jon au, spoilers for someone else's page
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyCorvid/pseuds/HoneyCorvid
Summary: Elias approaches the Archivist with an offer.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Tell Me (Tell Me What You See) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757773
Comments: 25
Kudos: 227





	Winsome As You May Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a jon-POV oneshot that doesn't fit in someone else's page-- don't read this just yet if you don't want Any Spoilers for what jon is and how he and jonahlias know each other, but otherwise this is just the world's shittiest job interview honestly

When Elias comes to him with the job, blood still spattered down his front from Gertrude’s… laying off, (his suit costs thousands, a number Jon pushes against knowing the exacts of largely out of spite. It’s ruined now, anyway.) Jon is sleeping. He spends most of his time sleeping these days, curled in a nest of paper and old leather and dozens of feet of tangled magnetic tape, drifting silent and terrible through other people’s dreams. 

Technically, his home was once several underground cells in Millbank prison, although he’s long since redecorated it out of any usefulness for keeping people contained, much less  _ him _ . Thick parchment is draped across the walls and the holes where walls or doors once were, blocking out any potential view of him from the panopticon only a few dozen feet away. It’s one of the safest places to hide from the Eye, if you can get there without it noticing, which is….mostly impossible. Even still, it’s a guess for Elias to come looking for him there, albeit a safe one; he’s not left it particularly often since the brief respite from his boredom that was attending university.

Elias knocks, almost sarcastically, on the concrete wall, and Jon burrows stubbornly into the paper of his nest. Elias sighs.

“Archive,” he starts, and Jon opens just enough eyes to glare at him. “-- _ Jon,  _ fine. I have a job for you.”

“Let me guess,” Jon mutters, voice muffled. “Your little  _ have a human organize the institute’s actual archives  _ experiment didn’t go as planned?”

“Don’t be petulant, Archive,” Elias says, bored. Jon rolls over to face him, not bothering with the daunting prospect of actually rearranging his physical shape enough to sit up. 

“I’m not being petulant, I just don’t like you very much, and judging by your avant-garde new shirt pattern you don’t treat your  _ Head Archivists of the Magnus Institute, London  _ particularly well.”

Elias rolls his eyes. “You start tomorrow morning. It’s  _ your  _ job to process statements now, so if you want to  _ eat,  _ you’ll have to actually come upstairs. I thought you’d be pleased to have something to do other than mope down here about not getting to play house with that  _ podcaster _ , honestly.”

“I’m not  _ moping _ ,” Jon says, the words sliding off his tongue with the ease of a sentence he’s said a thousand times and leaving behind the acid-and-hate burn that comes with lying. It’s not something he’s meant to do. “And…fine. Whatever. I’ll be there. Now get out of my room, Jonah.”

He waits until Elias is almost all the way back to the surface before heaving himself to his feet, dragging his body into a shape verging on human with some reluctance and yanking fingers through his hair until it’s almost some kind of presentable. There’s no need to seal any of his eyes just yet; he’s certain there’s nobody human in the institute at the moment, and the only person that could see him in the tunnels is fucking  _ Leitner,  _ who he doesn’t especially mind frightening. 

He brushes dust and dreams off his sleeves perfunctorily, and heads upstairs to begin fixing his Archives.

**Author's Note:**

> (jon voice) IM NOT WHINING, DAD
> 
> im on twitter @honeycorvid etc etc etc. title from the same crane wives song as the general series title, strangler fig


End file.
